


The Doctor and the Burning Bush

by Cannibal_Cake



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Hand-Wavy-Pseudo-Science, Memory Alteration, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Doctor is rude, The TARDIS chooses sides, The author got drunk while reading the Bible, crack fic?, empathic character, mindfuckery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cannibal_Cake/pseuds/Cannibal_Cake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An American teacher with a humdrum life secretly wants adventure--but when thousands of tiny aliens take up residence in and set ablaze to a bush in her backyard she is visited by the Doctor who believes she’s in serious danger. (Or she may just have a new pet. He’s unsure.) It seems that events from her childhood have led up to this very day, but is she truly ready to have her life turned upside down by the extraterrestrial? </p><p>Rated for swearing and possible adult situations, but nothing of a graphic nature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Glenda and the Burning Bush

**Author's Note:**

> Though I am not new to writing or to writing fanfics, it has has been a veeeery long time since I've done any fandom work. Also, I've never written for Doctor Who before now, but I feel like I've read enough of it to finally take it on. This is my first AO3 submission so please be gentle with me. I may screw up the formatting a bit. 
> 
> This is all unbeta'd, so every single mistake is mine. If anyone wants to volunteer for the job I'd greatly appreciate it.
> 
> \--CC

The night was coming on slowly as she sat on her back porch, smoking a cigarette. Life was perfectly ordinary for Glenda. She took few risks in life other than the cancer stick—And it was true what some said, we’re all allowed one vice. This was hers, a private indulgence that no one knew about. She preferred that people saw her as stable and dependable, a woman who did what she ought even if she wasn’t particularly ambitious. Glenda seemed content with her life as it was: working seven-thirty to three at the local middle school as an English teacher during the day and keeping mostly to herself and her lesson plans at night. But it was this one thing, the smoking, an unknown fact that said the most about her: she wanted something else from life, something that her middle class world could not offer her. She fully expected nothing to happen to her that would change her life in any appreciable way. To her family and her friends she seemed content with her lot in life. But with each drag on the cigarette she announced to herself that she wasn’t happy with the way her life had turned out.

 

Which was why she nearly set her clothes on fire with that cigarette when something DID happen.

 

“What the hell,” she exclaimed as she jumped to her feet to let the burning cigarette fall from her lap and down to the wooden planks. She stomped it out with the toe of her Toms. For a second or two she had been sure that one of the shrubs in her tiny backyard had been ablaze in blue light. By the time she had her cigarette out the light was gone. Glenda rubbed at her eyes. Maybe her contacts needed to be changed, she thought. As she lowered her hand, though, she saw the shrubs alight once more and this time it pulsed back and forth between a sky blue and a blazing white in a gentle one-two rhythm.  It was beautiful. And like a tractor beam, she was drawn to it. She slowly descended the steps of the porch and stepped out onto the lawn. As she approached, her mind called up an old story from Sunday school, the one about Moses and the burning bush. With little other thought in her head she kicked her espadrilles off and approached the rest of the way on bare feet, letting the dewy grass tickle her sensitive flesh.  

 

She reached her fingers towards the light, wondering if it would burn her, but just having to know one way or the other. She was mere inches from the beautiful light and it was as though whatever was there was eager for her touch as well because it pulsed, like rave lighting, faster and faster. A tiny wisp extended towards her hand. She turned her palm up as though she’d like to cup that light in her palm. But then, without notice, the flames retreated into itself and then extinguished completely. Her whine of disappointment was on her tongue when she heard her garden gate creak open and then shut with a clang. Glenda spun on her heels in surprise to see a man holding a green laser pointer that was aimed straight at her. It must have been malfunctioning, because it buzzed and whirred in his hand and when she looked down at herself she didn’t see the telltale dot that should have been on her chest. She noted this in that surreal way one experiences when one’s brain is starting to overload.

 

Glenda began to wonder if someone had laced her cigarettes with weed. She even looked down, expecting to see a cigarette in her hand but had forgotten that it lay smouldering on her porch. At that she released a small giggle--and then whatever invisible wires there were that held her up were cut and she collapsed to the ground.

 

 

 

◍ ◍ ◍

 

An indeterminate amount of time later Glenda was coming to again by the gentle tapping of a cool hand against her cheek.

 

“Ah, there you are. You scared me for a moment.” She blinked the fuzziness from her eyes and in the decreasing light she could just make out the face of the man who’d been aiming the laser pointer at her.  Now that she was stirring, he backed up and removed his hand from her face and began smoothing floppy hair from his rather wide forehead. After this, he rubbed his square jaw and bit his lip, seeming to mull over an important decision.

 

“Who are y—“ But before she could finish that sentence he had whipped the laser pointer out again and ran it up and down her body. It wasn’t a laser pointer, though, she could see that now. At least not one she had ever seen before. It looked more like a miniature light saber out of Star Wars, minus the actual saber part. It was whirring and buzzing like before.

 

“To answer your question,” he began as he finished moving the light over her and then flicked it upwards to study the shaft, “I’m the Doctor.”

 

Glenda pushed herself up onto her elbows and stared at him. “You’re a doctor?”

 

He continued to stare at the device, turning it this way and that in his hand. “If you like.”

 

“But what’s your name? Wait, are you British?” It had taken her a minute to place the foreign cadence of his voice but it definitely wasn’t American.

 

The man shoved his tool back into a pocket of his (was that tweed?) jacket and then sat back onto the grass in a cross-legged position, like a schoolboy, sporting a boyish grin to match. “I already told you my name. I’m called the Doctor.”

 

“That’s not a name.”

 

“Sure it is. What’s yours?”

 

She pushed a strand of hair out of her face and sat up the rest of the way to face him. “My name’s Glenda.” She narrowed her eyes warily. “What kind of name is The Doctor?”

 

The man steepled his hands under his chin, resting his elbows on each thigh and the smirk widened a bit. “Why don’t we exchange question, yeah?” She nodded and was about to ask her question again when he interrupted. “Splendid! I’ll go first! What happened here in your garden tonight, Glenda?” The smirk faded and became one of grim concentration and Glenda’s pulse began to race.

 

“Umm, I was sitting on my porch back there, smoking a cigarette—“

 

“You know that’s a filthy habit, right?” He straightened the red bow tie at his neck.

 

“Yes, I do,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Do you want me to finish or what?” The man gestured for her to continue. “Anyways. I was just sitting there smoking.” He rolled his eyes at her. When she was sure he wasn’t going to interrupt again she continued. “When all-of-a-sudden my azalea bush burst into blue and white flames.”

 

His eyes drifted from her face and landed on the bush in question. “That’s definitely not normal,” he said, very slowly.

 

“No, it’s not. I nearly burned a hole in my jeans, I was so surprised.” She found the charred bit of her pant leg and scrapped at it with her fingernail.

 

“One of the many hazards of smoking, I suppose,” he said, absently. He straightened the bow tie again and Glenda wondered if it was a nervous tick.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, dismissively.  “My turn: Who are you, really?”

 

“I told you already,” he answered as he rose to his feet and started to walk slowly towards her azaleas. “Not my fault you didn’t like my answer.” He drew that weird tool from his pocket again and aimed it at the plant. Now that the darkness was nearly complete she could see the green glow radiating softly from the tip. “But you can ask another question, if you like.”

 

She huffed her annoyance. “Are you always this annoying?”

 

“It’s been mentioned from time to time.” Again he whipped the tool upward and seemed to be reading something that she couldn’t make out from the handle.  He sniffed a bit and added, “I don’t generally pay attention to those types of remarks.”

 

This was getting weirder by the minute and she couldn’t take it sitting down any longer. With some effort, because her limbs still weren’t that steady, she got to her feet and approached his tweed-clad back. He was bent over the bush, sniffing the leaves. When she got closer she saw that he was actually sticking his tongue out to lick one of them.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Now, now. My turn!" He smacked his lips as if trying to identify what he had just tasted. Then he straightened and turned to face her. “What did you do when you saw this bush burst into flames?” As he spoke he began walking slowly towards her, causing her to instinctively move backwards towards the porch. She still had no clue whether this man (The Doctor? What kind of a megalomaniac doesn't have a name?) was a friend or enemy. In the complete absurdity of the moment it had taken her mind a little longer than it should have to raise the intruder alarm. Well, it was ringing now. She wasn't exactly getting serial rapist off this guy, but maybe he was an escaped mental patient?

 

She only had a few more feet to go before she could race up her steps onto the porch and then maybe she could make the rest of the way into her nicely dead bolted house. There was a phone in there with brightly backlit numbers that she could punch to get a 911 operator on the line and tell them to bring the butterfly nets and a straight jacket. In Glenda's confusion, she had completely forgotten about the automatic flood lights she'd had installed a few weeks earlier. So, when she absently stepped into the radius of its sensors she almost screamed as her yard was instantly bathed in bright light.

 

The man shielded his eyes against the sudden shocking illumination. Glenda decided to take the opportunity to make a break for it.

 

"Oy, come back!" she heard him call after her just as she closed the sliding glass door and locked it. She leaned her back against its cool surface and tried to get her racing heart under control. The phone was just on the other side of the living room. She would call the cops and then -- A loud thump against the glass startled her and she whirled around to see her trespasser standing there with a pleading expression across his face.

 

"Let me in, Glenda. Please?" The sound of his voice carried through the glass in a muffled sort of way and she had to lean closer to hear him. "I think you may be in terrible danger." Another thought seemed to occur to him because he added, "Or you might have a new pet. I'm not sure yet. But that's why I need to talk to you! "

 

"I think you might be the only danger I'm in, Doctor!" She called back from her side of the glass. "Now get off my property before I call the cops."

 

The Doctor pulled at his hair in frustration and then slowly smooshed his face against the door. He looked rather ridiculous and the action made his next words come out even more muffled. "Look. I swear on my TARDIS that I mean you no harm."

 

"Your what?"

 

The Doctor pulled his face from the glass, leaving behind an impression of his face. He rubbed at his nose before answering her. "My TARDIS. The thing I hold most dear in the universe."

 

“And that’s supposed to mean something to me, because...”

 

With her question that boyish glint was back in the Doctor’s eyes. “Ah! I can show you that!” He rubbed his palms together with apparent glee. “If that’s what it takes, I will show you!”

 

"Show me what?" She said, the frustration building inside of her. She pointed her finger at him, aggressively. "If you're about to show me your thing then you can save it, buddy. I'm not buying what you're selling."

 

The Doctor looked scandalized. "My what?! Good Lord, you Americans really are rather rude, aren't you?"

 

"I'm not the madman trespassing on private property!"

 

"Just because I'm mad, doesn't give you the right to be rude." So, he was insane. But she was beginning to feel a little ashamed and embarrassed by what she'd said.

 

"Alright. I'm sorry for being rude. What did you want to show me?"

 

The Doctor's affronted expression seemed to relent somewhat with her apology. "Wait here," he said. "I'll be right back." And with that he trotted off her porch and back out the way he had come, through her garden gate.

 

Glenda waited. And she waited some more. When she was starting to believe that he wasn't coming back was the exact moment an awful sound started to assault her ears. It was like someone had crossed the screech of an elephant with what you would expect a pterodactyl's screech to sound like. And over top that screeching was a sound like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, making her think of laser beams. That sound pulsed over and over. It drew her out of the house against her better judgement. By the time she'd reached the top of her porch stairs something was beginning to materialize out of that sound. She saw a flash of a blue shed type thing or maybe it was a telephone box, but it wouldn't stay solid for more than a moment. She closed her eyes and told herself that none of this was real. She was having a crazy dream, brought on by eating those leftovers spring rolls in her fridge. She knew they had been in there too long but she'd eaten them anyway. That's all this is, she thought. I'm dreaming and soon I'll wake up.

 

When she finally opened up her eyes, however, the blue box wasn't flashing in and out of sight anymore. It was solid and very real looking, parked in the middle of her lawn. She pinched the underside of her arm, though, just to be sure, and when she still didn't wake up she started laughing. She was going mad. Her laughter grew to hysterical levels when she saw the door of the box open and out walked the Doctor. At first he looked smug, as though he'd pulled off a particularly good parlor trick, but as he noticed the state Glenda was in he seemed to grow concerned. Glenda thought this was funny too and she collapsed on the top stair of her porch, clung to the porch railing and keened with hysterical laughter.

 

The Doctor approached her carefully, his hands out in front of him as though she were a wild animal he was trying to coax out of a fury. "Are you alright?" When she didn't answer him but kept on laughing he placed a hand on her shoulder and looked directly into her eyes. He searched them for a moment and then said, "Well, this is a first. Usually people are shocked of course, but --"

 

"Glenda and the Burning Bush!" It was hard for him to make out the words through her gasps between giggles. "Took my shoes off...And now there's a madman with a blue box..." Suddenly, she trailed off and her crazy laughter stopped. She met the Doctor's eyes and said, "I think there's something wrong with me."

 

As she said this her azalea bush burst into those dancing blue and white lights once more. They both whipped their heads around to stare at it. Glenda stood and started for it but the Doctor grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back. "No, no, no you don't!" He was much stronger than he looked and the force of his pull yanked her away from the burning bush and slammed her into his chest. She struggled but the Doctor put his arm around her waist and started to walk backward with her towards his blue box. "I think you're right, Glenda," he whispered in her ear. "Something is very wrong. I'm taking you into my ship. You'll be safe there. I promise."

 


	2. Slight and Latent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor is a bit rude, but he means well. The TARDIS chooses sides. Glenda is having a hard time with all of this.

She hadn't gone easily, much to the Doctor's annoyance. She kicked at his shins and dug her nails into his wrists with every step away from that curious, but most likely dangerous burning bush. She didn't scream, though, which was odd. But probably good. The last thing he needed was for her neighbors to come running to see what was the matter. He had taken a calculated risk already by materializing the TARDIS into her back garden. It's just that he had been desperate to win her confidence. He hadn't suspected that he might already be too late to help her.

 

Once at the door to his ship he stretched his foot back to kick it open and struggled with her the last few steps through. Rassilon, was this what he was coming to? Kidnapping women that he was supposed to be protecting in order to protect them? He'd never forcefully brought anyone onto the TARDIS before. Oh, sometimes people snuck on or accidentally wandered on but never this. He didn't like it. It wasn't what he did. But he liked that azalea bush even less. He'd gotten some really strange readings off of it when he'd scanned it with his sonic screwdriver. Lifeforms, too numerous to count, had taken up residence in it and he had no idea what they were or what they wanted-except that they wanted this woman. And it appeared to be causing her to go completely barking.

 

So wrapped up in his thoughts was he that he hadn't noticed that Glenda had stopped struggling in his arms once the door had closed. "You can let me go now. I'm alright, I think." Slowly, he unwound his arm from her waist and then stepped around her so that she was facing him but so that he was also blocking the door.

 

"Are you sure?" She nodded her head. Bits of her brown wavy hair fell from behind her ears in the process. She absently pushed the strands back again. She looked tired. "Because I can't let you go back out there. At least not until I know that it's safe."

 

She raised her hands to her freckled face and slid them down very slowly. "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

 

He smiled, despite himself. "You're quoting Tolkien?"

 

"Actually, I think that was from the movie, paraphrased from the book." She was staring off into the middle distance and he knew that she was only partly attending to the situation. "I'm an English teacher, you know."

 

"No, I didn't."

 

She went on, as though she hadn't heard his reply. "But it felt appropriate, just now. I'm better, but I still don't feel like myself."

 

"Why don't you come and sit down?" He took one of her hands from her face and led her around towards one of the jump seats in the control room.  "I'll make you a nice cup of tea."

 

"I'd rather have a cigarette..." Her eyes widened as she looked all around her. "Oh my God! This place is-it's freaking huge!"

 

"Yes, its bigger on the inside." He supplied, feeling slightly cheated that she hadn't said the line herself.

 

Glenda spun around on the soles of her feet, taking everything in. "Am I going crazy again?"

 

He laughed and stepped closer to her. "No, you aren't. Here, sit down." He gently pushed her into the nearby jump seat.

 

"Then how is this possible? It's no bigger than a shed on the outside."

 

"This is my TARDIS. It stands for 'Time And Relative Dimensions In Space'. On the outside of this ship is one dimension, meant to look like a British police telephone box." She gave him a perplexed look. "I know, it doesn't translate so well in England anymore, either." The Doctor stepped back a few paces and leaned against the console, spreading his arms wide to encompass everything she saw. "But inside here we are in a completely different dimension."

 

"I don't understand. Do you mean that we're in space?"

 

"Not as such. But if it helps you to think of it that way, by all means. This is a space ship, after all. At the moment we're kind of nowhere."

 

"Oh," was all she said. He'd really expected more than that. He thought it might be an indication of the level of shock she was in.

 

"I know this is a lot to take in right now. But I promise you, Glenda, it will get easier."

 

She shoved her hands under her legs. "Doctor, are you trying to tell me that you're an alien?"

 

This was always the tricky bit, when they figured out that he wasn't like them. And so he did what he always did. He told the truth with a level gaze. "Yes, I am."

 

She cocked her head to the side as though she were trying to suss out a particularly obtuse abstract painting. "But you don't look like an alien."

 

He smiled, feeling particularly fond of humanity at the moment. "Neither do you. At least, not to me," he said.

 

Slowly, she seemed to be coming around to the idea. "That's right. I guess I'm the alien to you."

 

The Doctor found that it touched his hearts that she was so accepting of him. She was able to see the situation from another's perspective, something that not all humans were able to do. Now he was really rather glad that he’d saved this one.

 

Quite suddenly, a few puzzle pieces locked into place. The Doctor slapped himself upside the head. "That's what it is! You must have latent empathic abilities!" He turned around to his control panel and started flicking levers and turning knobs.

 

"Run that by me again?" She had slipped off the jump seat and drawn up beside him. She stared at the console curiously, but she wasn't focused on what he was doing particularly. She seemed to be fascinated with his bullet-studded-spherical-whats-it. And yes, that was the technical term for the apparatus. He looked at her from the corner of his eye and pushed one last button. Then he waited. A few seconds later he heard a bing, which was his signal that the TARDIS had finished doing her stuff. He liked things that binged when there was stuff.

 

Just as his new friend was about to touch another whats-it, this one being a lever, he cleared his throat to gain her attention. "Tell me how I'm feeling, Glenda."

 

She drew her hand away from the lever slowly as her head floated back to rest upright on the apex of her neck. She drew closer to him, her eyes going over his face as though she were reading a particularly thrilling passage of a book. "You're excited. I mean really amped up," she said and then the puckered scar above her brows became more pronounced as she frowned. Even though he expected some of her words, the Doctor felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "But you're also a little scared and worried." Then she stopped herself and raised her hand, as if to push the Doctor away. "Wait, how did I do that?"

 

"My ship is a bit telepathic. I had her scan you and then boost your latent abilities."

 

She stepped back with a gasp. "You did what?!"

 

He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look unconcerned. "Oh, don't worry. It’s not as though it’s permanent."

 

"That's not the point, and you know it!" She said, through gritted teeth. "I can feel it, you know. The guilt you're feeling right now. Well, it serves you right! Messing around in my head! Turn it off, whatever you're doing!"

 

Without looking away from her, for fear that she was about to scratch his eyes out, he leaned over and flicked a switch. "There. It's off. You shouldn't be able to sense what I'm feeling anymore."

  
She relaxed then, her features beginning to smooth themselves out. He noticed a faint but jagged scar on her forehead. It ran the length of her eyebrows but curved downwards in the middle. It looked to be a fairly old scar. "Good," she said. "Now will you please tell me what in the hell is going on?"

 

◍ ◍ ◍

 

Twenty minutes later, after he had explained what little he knew about the situation, Glenda was pacing about the control room. She was puffing emphatically on a cigarette, a cloud of smoke following her. The Doctor had tried to tell her that he didn't allow smoking on the TARDIS.

 

"Look, there are very delicate controls and devices on here and I can't have you polluting the air. It could muck something up."

 

"Seriously?" She waved the cigarette in front of his face. He coughed and leaned away from her. "You've just told me that I have a legion of tiny aliens who've squatted in my azalea bush. And you think they are trying to get me. You're really worried a little smoke will make your space GPS go wonky?"

 

"No!" He grabbed the cigarette from her mouth and dropped it into the cup of tea that he had made for her. "I'm worried that something in here could explode."

 

"Oh, get real." She was already taking another cigarette from her pack and lit it up. "This thing shouldn't exist. You fly through space in this thing."

 

"And time."

 

She stopped mid-drag at that. "You're kidding?"

 

"No, I'm not."

 

Her heart beat faster at this news. "Okay, saving that bit for later. My reasoning still stands, though," she added, haughtily. "If your ship can do all that, then it can deal with a little smoke." She could tell the Doctor was about to protest anyway when she began to feel a rush of air flowing upwards, through the cabin.

 

The Doctor covered his face with his hand. "Must you encourage her? Really?" The smoke was now dragging up from around them and being filtered out of the room.

 

Triumph swelled in Glenda's chest as she took another puff. "Hah! It looks like your slightly psychic ship likes me." She ran her free hand up one of the support columns. "Thanks, old girl. I like you too."

 

"Fine. Fine. Continue polluting your lungs." He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. "See if I care."

 

But he did care. She could tell. It wasn't like before when he'd pulled that psychic whammy on her, but maybe he'd been right about her latent abilities. She could read him, just a little too well. This guy, whatever he was, didn't know her from Eve. Yet, he had already gone to great lengths to keep her safe. With a sigh, she extinguished her cigarette with the other one in the cup of tea. "Alright," she said, finally. "I'm sorry. Your spaceship, your rules."

 

He looked up at her then, a relieved expression on his face. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Thank you. I know this is all rather a lot to take in. But everything will be just fine. You'll see."

 

For some reason Glenda's heart did a little jig inside her chest at the feel of his hand on her shoulder. She gulped. "What are we going to do?"

 

"You, my dear, won't be doing anything just yet." Very gently, he slid his hand down her arm to take her hand. He led her over to the round console and flipped a few switches. An image of her backyard appeared on the monitor over her head. He pulled it down to eye level and pointed at it. "I'm going to go out there and try to find out what they want." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm switching POVs a bit in this chapter, but I've done my best to try to differentiate between them. Please let me know if this is confusing. Should I just break each POV into a new chapter, even if that makes the chapters incredible short? I was trying not to be a chapter-tease, but if that works better then I will oblige.
> 
> \--CC


	3. Childhood Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor prepares to confront the unknown aliens but a story from Glenda's past delays his plan.

"Um. Do you really think this is a good idea, Doctor," she asked through the grating above him.

 

He had gone down below decks to search the supply hatches for a few things he thought might come in handy. He pulled out a roll of fly paper, left over from that one time Rory had let a bunch of Crusuican flies lay their larvae on his jumper. "I'm very rarely sure anything is the best idea, but what's the fun in that?" Next he pulled out a box of matches. They were the kind you could strick on any hard surface.

 

"But I went a little screwy out there," she said, a bit of worry and perhaps a suisan of exasperation creeping into her tone. "Aren't you afraid that'll happen to you?"

 

"Nah," he said. Lastly, he fished a stick of candy cane out from the very bottom of the hatch. He had no idea how long it'd been there. He licked it and then spit in disgust. It tasted like lint and ozone, but he shoved it and the other two items into the pockets of his jacket. Just as he was about to close the hatch he thought better of it and pulled out a baseball catcher's mask and placed it on his head, the visor out of his vision for the moment. "If nothing happened to me when I was out there with you before I can't see the harm in going back out again." He walked back up the stairs to the main deck, patting his pockets along the way.

 

"Maybe," she allowed, "but I won't be able to come out and get you if you're wrong." She'd been studying the live video feed of her backyard as he'd ascended, but then she turned to him. She raised her eyebrow a fraction of an inch as her eyes took in his head gear. "What _are_ you wearing?"

 

"Well, I don't need little aliens pelting me in the face, now do I?" He said as he lowered the visor in demonstration.

 

Glenda covered her mouth with her hand, but he could see laughter in her eyes. "Oy! Don't go making fun," he said, raising the visor again.

 

"I'm sorry, she said, raising her hand from her mouth, which was pressed in a firm but trembling laughter line, up to her forehead, brushing away her hair which had once again escaped from behind her ear.

 

"Where did you get that scar, Glenda?" An idea had been percolating in the back of his mind but he needed more information. "The one across your forehead."

 

Her cheeks went a bit pink as she rubbed at the scar, as though she would wipe the mark away. "This? I got it when I was little. Seven or eight, I think. I was in a car accident."

 

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "It looks like a nasty injury."

 

She laughed a little at this. "I don't remember too much about it, really. I wore glasses back then. My mother told me that when she hit this truck coming around a blind corner my glasses flew up and I slammed into the front seat. The rims of my glasses lacerated my skull." She was beginning to babble on a bit. It seemed like a speech she'd given many times before but it didn't seem to be one she actually enjoyed giving. "That's why the middle part dips down. It's the bridge between the lenses. She says you could see clear down to the bone. "

 

The Doctor felt himself wince at that last bit. "But you don't remember any of it?"

 

"No. I guess I lost consciousness. I don't remember anything about the next twenty-four hours."

 

The Doctor scratched at the side of his face, thinking furiously. "What does your mother say about it? Surely, she remembers what happened after the accident." He was beginning to draw some conclusions and he didn't like them.

 

"Well..." Glenda stared at him a moment as though she were trying to puzzle him out in return. "She said that I was awake and making jokes with the ER staff and that the plastic surgeon who came to stitch me up said I was really brave. But she wasn't allowed to be in the room with me for that part." She reached up and wiped at the scar again. "I never considered asking her for any more details. She and I both figured that the concussion messed with my memory. The surgeon told her that might happen."

 

The Doctor began pacing back and forth in front of the console. _Not good. Not good,_ he thought. "Did they scan your brain afterwards? To check for a concussion?"

 

"I don't know," she said. Something in her voice made him stop and look in her direction. She was wringing her hands in her lap, having sunk back into the jump seat. "You're scaring me, Doctor. What does my childhood scar have to do with anything? It was ages ago." In that moment she sounded like the scared child she must have been at seven. She needed reassurance, but he wasn't sure how he could give it to her. He needed a better look at her brain.

 

"Would you permit me to have a look around in there?" He stood before her with his palms together in front of his chest, as though in prayer. He was, in fact, simply holding out hope that he was wrong in his suppositions.

 

She looked down at his hands and then back up to his face with apprehension. "Y-you can do that?"

 

"I'll be extremely gentle, but it will be a bit, umm..." He searched for the right word that would both prepare her but also not scare her off entirely. "Ticklish."

 

"But why?" she asked. Oh, Rassilon, he wanted to take that scared feeling from her but he just had to know.

 

"Because I'm concerned that all of this is connected." He extended his hand out to caress her temple. "Your scar, the memory loss, the latent empathic ability, the aliens in your azalea shrub."

 

"No." She pushed his hand aside and slipped off the side of the seat, away from him. "You can't just tell me you suspect that something is wrong with my brain and that's why there are little blue aliens in my shrubbery! Not without a damn good explanation."

 

"I apologize, Glenda," he said, his hands raised in surrender. "It's just that the more I know, the better I can protect you."

 

"This is just too much. An hour ago there was no such thing as aliens and mind tricks." She covered a sob with the palm of her hand. "My life was normal," she said. "Normal, damn it!" She sunk down to the floor in seeming misery.

 

The Doctor felt fairly miserable, himself. He took off the helmet and put it on the jump seat. Then he edged his way to her side slowly, so as not to frighten her. "Glenda, I'm going to sit down beside you, okay?" Her only reply was a hiccup between silent sobs, so he sat. He moved to put a tentative arm around her shoulder. She glanced up at him with watery eyes but didn't object as his arm settled around her. "We don't have to do it now," he said. Still, she did not speak. "I can go inspect things outside first." He leaned his head over to rest on top of hers. He half expected her to push him away at any moment, but she never did. He wasn't entirely sure that she paying any attention to him, but if she was then he wanted to be comforting her.

 

After a while Glenda wiped at her wet nose with her sleeve. "Actually, let's just get this over with," she said.

 

He smiled into her hair, pleased with her bravery and acceptance. "Are you sure?" he asked.

 

She sniffed and then squared her shoulders. "Yes. I am."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is the last of what I have currently written. My deal with you, lovely readers, is that I solemnly swear to you that I will update at least once a week...unless I don't. On the up side, I'm super into this story at the moment so only the most pressing real-world deadline is apt to make me give up writing this story.  
> \--CC


	4. Into the Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor explains the philosophy of the mind and mind-walking (sort of) and they set off in search of answers.

“What do you have to do?” she asked, chafing her chilled arms with her hands. “To go into my mind, I mean.” The Doctor had to remove his arm from around her shoulder in order for her to do so, and she had to admit that this was part of the reason she’d done it. It was his touch that had made her cold, though it had been nice to have the bit of comfort. She’d never met anyone that ran so cold, apart from her granny who had always complained of poor circulation. Somehow, she didn’t think that this was the Doctor’s problem.

 

The Doctor resituated himself to perpendicularly face her. He rested his elbows on his bent knees and his chin on his fisted hands before beginning. “You seem pretty confident that I can do so,” he stated with a curious lilt in his voice.

 

It had never occurred to her to doubt his words. With the way things had been going the last hour or so her disbelief had been suspended. “You could tell me that you can shoot lasers from your eyes at the moment and I’d probably believe you,” she said.

 

At this he snorted in amusement. “I assure you that I can do nothing of the sort. I’m not fond of weapons at any rate.” He started twiddling his thumbs as he studied her for a moment. As he stared his eyes dilated. It was as though he was both seeing her and not at the same time. It unnerved her and he’d never seemed more alien.

 

“Are you doing it now?” she asked, self-consciously.

 

“What?” His eyes refocused and seemed to become fully aware of her once more. “No. I was just thinking,” he said with a smile that was possibly meant to reassure her. He went on as if he hadn’t just broken the human taboo of staring at her. “The process is complex to explain fully. It is a particular gift of my species.”

 

“Which is?” She’d wanted to ask him this since she’d learned of his alien status, but had been too shy to ask. Well, if he were going to be so bold as to stare at her then she could ask him a personal question, uninvited.

 

“Gallifreyan," he answered in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "I come from the planet Gallifrey.”

 

“Oh.” Of course, the name meant nothing to her, but she’d half expected him to say Mars, though she knew it was silly of her. The rovers would have noticed something like an entire civilization on the planet. “I’m sorry for interrupting. Go on?” God, she wanted a cigarette.

 

The Doctor relaxed backwards, leaning on his hands as he spoke. “On the outside, or physical plane, all I’ll have to do is lay my hands on your head.” She shivered involuntarily at the thought of his cold hands on her head. “All you’ll have to do is relax and let me do it. That’s harder than it sounds.”

 

Glenda snorted in wry amusement and shifted her eyes to his hands. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” She shifted, relieving the pressure on the foot she’d tucked underneath her, which was starting to go numb. “By placing your hands on my head you’ll be able to do what? Read my mind?”

 

“No, no. At least not in the way you’re probably imagining. Think of your mind in the metaphysical sense: Your mind is more than an organ. It is the essence of who you are and all that you are is housed in it. I won’t be looking at your individual thoughts. I will be wandering around inside the corridors of your mind, poking around in the rooms.” He was chattering on at an unconcerned rate and she raised her hand, signaling him to stop.

 

“I don’t understand, Doctor,” she said through a frown. “Will you have full access to everything? How is that any different than reading my thoughts?” She didn’t like to think that he would be privy to her most private memories.

 

“Well, that’s where you come in. I’ll be a guest in your mind and it will be up to you to lead me in the right direction. You can lead me away from what you don’t want me to see and I will follow.” Noting her confusion, he continued apologetically. “I said it was a bit complex. Everything will be clearer once we get started.”

 

Glenda focused on and worried at the burnt spot on the leg of her jeans again. The Doctor’s hand came into view and covered her fidgeting hand with his own. “I want you to trust me, Glenda. I won’t go anywhere you don’t want me to and you can eject me at any moment.” He caressed her knuckles with his thumb. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman.” Why did this feel like he was both propositioning her and walking her through a difficult surgery? She looked up into his face, which had softened in concern and tenderness. It was more than the look. It was something she could feel radiating from him. She upturned her hand and let him take it in his own.

 

* * *

 

 

He took her to another room on the ship. It looked like a study of some sort, but it was certainly grander than anything she’d ever seen, though it wasn’t exactly large. There was a deeply seated royal blue victorian settee and two wing backed chairs to match, all facing a crackling fireplace. Glenda immediately felt warmer as she took in the floor-to-ceiling rosewood bookshelves that flanked each side of the fireplace and lined every bit of the walls. The shelves were filled with tomes of varying sizes and subjects, but didn’t seem to be organized in any particular order. A title called, South African Cricket rested beside another, Fifty-Third Century Sexual Politics. She shied away from that one and fingered the next. It looked incredibly old and her eyes widened when she read the title. “Oh, my god. Doctor! Is this what I think it is?” She sensed him come up behind her and look over her shoulder as she pulled it part way from the shelving.

 

“Ah, yes,” he said, sounding a bit smug. “I asked Jesus to write down a few things for me. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the Gospel writers had gotten it right.”

 

She craned her neck to gawk at him. “Jesus? Jesus Christ?”

 

“Oy, c'mon,” he chided, raising one of his nearly nonexistent eyebrows at her. “No need to take your Lord's name in vain.” But he couldn’t keep a straight face and his disapproving frown split into a too-pleased-with-himself grin.

 

Glenda rolled her eyes as she pushed the book, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth: An Autobiography, back onto the shelf. “All right. Let’s get on with this before I change my mind.”

 

The Doctor motioned for her to sit on the settee. "I brought you here in the hopes that you would feel more comfortable." She sat down and found that she sunk back into the cushions far more than she expected by the look of the thing. She'd expected for it to be unyielding but had to admit that it was even more inviting than her recliner at home. What's more, the fire went a long way to heating up the perpetual chill she'd been feeling since entering the TARDIS. The only thing that was still jangling her nerves was the Doctor's presence, looming above her, backlit by the fire.

 

"Um," she started. "Do you want to sit down too? There's plenty of room, honestly."

 

The Doctor pursed his lips in thought. "No, I think it'd be better if you lay down."

 

"What, is this therapy now?" she asked, wryly.

 

"Hush, you," he retorted congenially. "Do as you're told." He picked up one of the throw pillows, plumped it and set it back down against the arm of the couch. "There."

 

"Fine. Fine. Down I go." She'd been trying, illogically, to defer this moment, but there was no getting around it now. Soon he'd be entering her mind. It terrified her, despite his assurances. Something, some event was hiding in her mind and it could be the key to figuring out what in the hell was going on in her backyard.

 

"I'm going to kneel behind you, just here..." Glenda sensed the Doctor from behind her as well as heard the faint rustling of his clothing but she flinched when his fingers came in contact with her hair. "No, no. Stay where you are and relax." His cool fingers warmed a fraction as he began massaging her scalp. It was a marvelous sensation and she could feel the tension melting from the skin of her brow, her eyelids, her neck, from her shoulders and breast, all the way down until even her toes felt as though they were sinking down to meet the soles of her feet. "That's it," he murmured. "Very soon I will be making contact with your mind. It will not hurt, but you need to deny your instincts to lock me out. Do you think you can do that, Glenda?"

 

She mewed in contentment. "As long as you keep doing that I imagine I'd agree to anything."

She heard his faint chuckle. "Good. Here I go."

  
  


When she opened her eyes she was in her own house. She sat up from the couch, where she had dozed off while watching the evening news. The glow from the television cast wan lights onto her pajamas, as the rest of the house was dark. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Dear god, she thought. That was the weirdest dream I've ever had.

 

A hollow knock sounded at her sliding glass door, behind the couch. She jumped, turned and saw him. At the sight of his angular face and the ridiculous bow tie on the other side of the double paned glass everything came back to her. This wasn't really her house and she hadn't dreamed up the insanity of the night. They were in her mind. She looked around her living room and noticed the evidence. The edges of her furniture were fuzzy, as though someone had taken an eraser to their outlines. She raised her hands from the back of the couch and a gold imprint of her fingers were left behind for a moment before fading again from view. Around the corner, where her short hallway was located, she heard the voices of her parents. Her old, twelve-years-dead dog, Cookie, could be heard yipping, and her own, much younger voice, giggling in childish glee, answered.

 

She sank back into couch and put her head in her hands. A tear of frustration escaped from the corner of her eye and she rubbed it out with her palm.

 

"Glenda?" She heard the Doctor's muffled call and she looked up to see him jiggling at the door's handle, his thumb mashing down ineffectually at the release button. "Can you let me in?" He looked a sight, and this elicited a laugh as she thought of how this moment echoed their earlier encounter. It worked to pull her just enough out of her funk.

 

"Oh, just come in already," she said and flicked her hand towards the glass door. The door pushed open a foot, of its own accord. It was just enough room for the Doctor to slip through and into her house.

 

Into her mind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter wasn't as long as I would have liked, but it seemed like a good place to stop, and I'm dead tired besides. 
> 
> \--CC


	5. Shifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Glenda become acquainted with some of the inner-workings of her mind. And of course, the Doctor makes a little bit of an ass of himself in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand....after a long and completely inexcusable absence I'm back. No one is probably even remotely interested in this little story, but when the muse hits--she hits with a ball-peen hammer until I comply.
> 
> -CC

In all actuality, the Doctor was poised over the edge of the settee and Glenda was lying placidly under his hands. If you were to come upon them then you would find two people who curiously resembled wax statues. You'd swear that they weren’t real, only there was a slight rise and fall to their chests, a certain sponginess to their skin, that betrayed life. 

Their minds, however, were both tucked away (in theory, if not in physical reality, to the point where the distinction did not signify) inside Glenda’s consciousness. It was another of the Doctor’s calculated risks. He would have never even considered engaging in mind-walking in any other environment than the TARDIS. The arrangement left both participants too vulnerable. Anyone-- _ anyone _ could take advantage of their physical pliability and frailty. One slip of the knife across the jugular. A poison dart to your thigh. The mind-walkers might not become aware until it was too late. It didn’t even have to be a somebody. Freak accidents had been known to happen on the physical plane that could seriously endanger people without any of their defensive reflexes intact. If there were a flood, a house fire, a hurricane--they might not make it through alive. 

This was why a fanatical level of control over your environment was an absolute requirement for the Doctor. What better place than the TARDIS, a completely automated and sentient vessel that not only understood her own parts, pieces and mechanisms, but also those of her primary inhabitants? Every compartment was temperature controlled and those aboard breathed purified air that had none of the suffocating staleness of recycled air. (The Doctor was just being a crotchety old man when he'd complained that Glenda's cigarette smoke could cause the ship to explode. Even without the extra upward ventilation the old girl had initiated, in such a small quantity, the fumes would have been effortlessly filtered out of the cabin.) It also helped that while inside the TARDIS one was in another dimension entirely. The only way in or out was through the front door, and the lock on that door had withstood a legion of Daleks, Cybermen and the blitzkrieg, among other things. The Doctor and Glenda were entirely safe. You could take their security to the bank.

In the console room a single red light on the control panel began blinking insistently.

 

* * *

 

 

He shouldn't have been surprised, the Doctor thought as he squeezed himself through the sliding glass door that represented the entrée into his friend's mind. He did not mind-walk very often, but when he did he couldn't help but be curious as to what shape the mental construct of his subject would take on. It was usually an unconscious effort on the other person's part and one that generally reflected the personality. Sometimes he'd find himself on a beach, his subject reclining on a chaise, frou-frou drink in hand. Once he'd been admitted onto a war room in the middle of a battlefield. That person's mind had been diseased with doubt and self-recrimination and it had been one of his most heartbreaking journeys.

Glenda was frightened, yes, and her home was the place she felt most secure, but she also seemed a solid sort of woman who knew the limits of what she could handle. It was here in this humble house that she had built her life and it was here that she felt most confident to tackle whatever was sealed away in the recesses of her memories. Bravo, Glenda.

 

* * *

 

 

Glenda watched nervously as the Doctor entered and then pushed the glass door back to its closed position. Without thinking about it she raised a finger and with a downward flicking motion engaged the lock. It sailed home with a click just as the Doctor was beginning to turn back to her. He checked behind him and then raised an eyebrow at her in question. 

She shrugged. "Force of habit." Then she sniggered without mirth. "Why am I not questioning any of this?" She waved an arm out and the lights came on and the television switched off. "How did I know I could do that? How are we here, in my house? Or rather, why are we here in what is most definitely  _ not _ my house?"

The Doctor came around to the front of the couch and sat beside her. She watched as he took her hand in his. "It's okay. You're safe." Somehow he had divined what was really bothering. She was afraid. Too much was happening too quickly. Part of her instinctively knew that all of this was very real, at least as far as her senses could tell. The other part knew that things like this  _ just couldn't happen _ . The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming. Of course what people don't understand is generally feared at first. 

Glenda sat up straighter and reclaimed her hand. She was attempting to gather herself and while the Doctor's hand had comforted her she needed to focus.  She scanned the familiarly alien surroundings of her home. That was the only way she could think of to describe what she was seeing. Everything from her actual house was there. The comfortably worn beige couch they sat on still bore the faint remnants of a wine stain on the arm rest. She had spent hours scrubbing at that stain with a boar hair brush and a bottle of spot remover. She'd had no idea at the time that the brush would only rub the stain even more firmly into the fabric. In front of her was the walnut coffee table her father had made for her, in honor of the purchase of this very house. The wood had come from the walnut trees in the backyard of her parents' house, where she had grown up. Her grade book and a stack of student writing assignments lay on top waiting to be corrected, their marks recorded. 

Looking around her everything was right and as it should be but just a shade or two off. If she concentrated on the wine stain she could almost swear that the merlot border didn't stay exactly stationary, like when you watch a slow-moving progress bar on your computer. You can't be sure, but you  _ think _ that the bar is creeping across the screen, so you stare and you stare, alternately thinking that yes, it moved! but in the next instant you're convinced that it hasn't budged a micrometer. And when she glanced at the stack of her students' paper she knew that Aiden Cooper's wasn't there because he'd never turned it in, claiming that he'd left it on the bus, and that Tabitha O'Connell's was in great need of spelling and punctuation correction, but that in general, her thesis and supporting arguments were very well thought out. It didn't seem to matter that Tabitha's paper had been written five years ago and that Aiden's had been due last week. 

"Okay," she said, attempting to pull herself out of areas of thought that she couldn't explain. "I know that we aren't in my house. We're in my mind. A moment ago we were in the TARDIS."

"Technically, we still are," he said in a gentle tone. Glenda felt, but didn't see him shift his weight on the cushion. She was staring at the carpet below her bare feet. Where her toes scrunched through the fibers little gold treads trailed after. "Do you remember why we're here?"

A strangled laugh escaped Glenda's lips. She felt the Doctor's hand hovering over her shoulder, no doubt wanting to reassure her, but she didn't want to be touched just now so she stood and started walking out of the living room and towards the kitchen. “You said that you needed to find something in here, but I've never been clear on what that is exactly." 

"I'm not entirely sure, either," he admitted, following behind her, his footsteps tapping across the linoleum. "I think we'll know when we see it."

She went to the sink and tried the faucet. There was the gold again at her fingertips, but water did start splashing into the stainless steel basin before it washed down the drain. She reached for the nearest cupboard and retrieved a glass from inside. She decided to ignore her gold fingerprints for the time being as she held the glass under the tap to let it fill with water and then lifted the cup to her mouth. She half expected not to be able to do this but the water felt cool and wet as it passed over her lips and down her throat. She did not look at him until after she had drained the glass and laid it down in the sink. Then she forced herself to look directly into his worried eyes.

"We better get going, then."

He smiled, and it lit up his eyes. She smiled back.

 

* * *

 

 

They excited her kitchen, with its slightly peeling linoleum tiles and went back into her carpeted living room. Now that the initial crisis of the situation had passed the Doctor took a moment to more fully inspect his surroundings. Both the living room and kitchen-cum-dining room was sunk lower than the front side of the house, which could be gotten to by going up two room-width wooden stairs. Those stairs led to a landing. On the left side of the landing was the front door. He could imagine her coming home, after a busy day teaching thirteen year olds the difference between alliteration and Thailand (the Doctor had no real grasp on what an American 21st century English teachers taught), and tossing her keys in the glass bowl on that sideboard in the middle of the landing before hanging her coat and bag up on that coat rack next to it. She'd then stop to look in the large mirror on the wall over the sideboard and sweep her ever-escaping hair back behind her ears again...Then perhaps she’d cross to the other side and look up the stairwell, trying to decide whether or not she should change into her pajamas before fixing herself dinner.

“Um, Doctor?”

The Doctor looked around, expecting to see Glenda standing right beside him, but she wasn't. And come to think of it, he wasn't where he expected to be, either. He was at the foot of her stairs, with one hand on the railing and his opposite foot on the bottom-most step, as if he were the one who was trying to decide if he should go up and put on his PJ’s. He shook his head. “Sorry, got away from myself, I think.”

“You do realize,” she said, sounding a bit strained from her unmoving position in front of the couch, “that you just went through my daily homecoming ritual?”

Had he? He patted his coat pockets, absently. It would appear that he had, if her face was anything to go on. She looked pinched and maybe even a little offended. He must have gotten caught up in one of her habit loops and run with it without noticing. Blimey, this was awkward. “Blimey, that's awkward,” he said as he went back to her side,straightening his bow tie before sniffing.

“What the hell was that?” She gestured his progress from her front door to the steps with a wave of her arm.

He sniffed again and answered without looking at her, choosing instead to inspect the spackle on her ceiling. He thought he could just make out the constellation of Cassiopeia. “That was nothing. I must have just picked up on one of your little rituals.”

She snorted. “Guess you did.” The Doctor dared a glance down at her and found that she was smiling, just a tiny bit. 

Time to move on swiftly, and with a plan of action. “Right,” he began with a clap and a rub of his hands. “First things should probably go first.”

Glenda looked around her mind-house, as if expecting to see a neon-flashing light pointing to a specific place on her floor plan. “And what's the first thing?” she asked, hesitantly.

**Author's Note:**

> Please R & R  
> 


End file.
